David Kilcullen

This essay is a very thought-provoking look at ISIS from a true expert in the field of military counter-terrorism strategy. Kilcullen has worked as a strategic advisor on the ground in Iraq, Afghanistan and numerous other trouble spots. In this essay, he charts the birth of ISIS from the al Qaeda in Iraq insurgent group and their rise in Syria and in Iraq to the point where they are now a de facto state.

This is possibly the most contentious claim in his essay, and it forms the centrepiece of his recommendations on how to defeat them: stop treating them like insurrectionists or a terror network, and start making war on them as if they were a state with fixed boundaries to defend, supply lines to protect, etc.

It’s a hard argument to discuss, because people get emotive about it. Whenever I have tried to discuss this idea, I have encountered people who get outraged and accuse me of being an ISIS apologist, because they can’t bear the thought of ISIS being considered a country. Strange to think that there are people who would label someone like Kilcullen an “ISIS apologist”, but there you are. I’m pretty sure this level of unhelpful emotion is a direct result of the scare-mongering politics that ISIS inspires here in Australia.

Kilcullen’s final thought is that defeating ISIS as a state is going to take considerable political will “without surrendering our civil liberties or betraying our ethics”. It’s a shame that, in an essay published in an Australian journal, he failed to discuss the fact that this is exactly what Australian politicians are doing as part of their fear-mongering response to the ISIS threat.… (altro)

Kilcullen provides a a fascinating view of the problem of insurgency (which has gained prominence in the last two decades) from the perspective of an army officer, a policy adviser and a theoretician. While in my youth I had read classic works such as[b:Defeating Communist Insurgency: Experiences from Malaya and Vietnam|3116892|Defeating Communist Insurgency Experiences from Malaya and Vietnam|Robert G.K. Thompson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1330083283s/3116892.jpg|3148212] and [b:Counter-Insurgency Operations: Techniques of Guerrilla Warfare|10477576|Counter-Insurgency Operations Techniques of Guerrilla Warfare |Julian Paget|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1297831789s/10477576.jpg|4152690], these are now quite dated. The nature of insurgency has changed since the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Communism has been replaced by an Islamist Jihad, technology and economic development are quite different. Thus, Kilcullen provided a contemporary update - some things were quite new and other familiar.

But in a couple of ways, the book was disappointing. It was a collection of previously written articles collected in a single volume, with notes to update them to 2009. And it was dating quite quickly. The discussion of the Al Qaeda led global jihad seems dated since we have seen the rise and apparent defeat of ISIS.… (altro)